As I pointed out in a recent article, the local media in no way painted a true picture of what was happening in the US presidential election. The coverage was completely misleading. Listening to our media you would be excused for thinking Kamala Harris was in with a shot of winning.
A few days before the election a poll, which should never have been published, showed Harris winning Iowa, a strongly Republican state. That poll was demonstrably false and in the election Trump won by 13 points.
She was never in with a hope of winning the election any more than Joe Biden was. But by using figures from national polls the media were able to promote their left-wing bias. As I have previously pointed out, the national polls bear no relation to what could, or would, happen in the electoral college.
Over the last four years we have heard plenty of news stories about the so-called misdemeanours of President Trump. The media have fed us a one-sided version of events relating to these. We have had endless stories of his hush money payments to an adult movie star, of having classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, of encouraging supporters to riot at Capitol Hill and of overvaluing his New York properties, among other fake felonies. How many Kiwis know how these came about?
How many Kiwis know that the Democrats weaponised the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Inland Revenue Service and possibly the Secret Service against Trump? Who recalls hearing that on our news? These charges were all brought in heavily Democratic states. Democrat-supporting judges were appointed to hear these cases. The whole disgusting charade was orchestrated by the deep state.
We know this was the case because evidence was provided by brave whistleblowers. Some were Democrats, but they were people with a conscience who knew what was going on was wrong.
Listening to our media you would have had every reason to believe Joe Biden had done nothing wrong through his entire presidency because our media chose to ignore all of the allegations of corruption that he was allegedly involved in, plus he also had classified documents in his possession. No charges were brought against him.
The Republicans, through methodically investigating the facts, got to the bottom of Biden’s alleged corruption. This was behaviour far worse than Trump was accused of. It involved bribes and threats to other countries. His son Hunter was also involved. Listening to our media you would not be aware of any of it. You would think the Bidens are squeaky clean and only Trump is the big, bad man.
This has been illustrated by various people in our media speaking out of sheer ignorance and naïvety. They appeared to have no idea what the Democrats and Biden have been up to. They only talked about Trump.
As Bruce Cotterill points out in an excellent article in the Weekend Herald, the US media, particularly the broadcast media, need to learn all over again how to listen, understand and talk to the half of the electorate that don’t represent their partisan views. But they won’t. Because they don’t want to.
Bruce says while the traditional media had one of its worst days, the new media won – and won big. He cited people like Megan Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan. He said these people proved not that the media is changing but has changed. And here’s the proof – Donald Trump’s three-hour chat with Rogan, America’s most popular podcaster, was watched by 65 MILLION. There’s the election, right there.
You wonder how long traditional media is going to continue shooting itself in the foot...All traditional left-wing media in the US are in financial trouble, whereas Fox is surviving and Newsmax, a relative newcomer, is doing so well it recently floated on the stock market. The behaviour of the traditional media, particularly those on the left, are doing nothing but hastening their own demise.
What is happening here is reflective of the story of the state of the US media. They are not going to survive long term unless they return to providing objective journalism and giving both sides of any story. The media here is lucky the country is too small to have much competition but that’s no excuse for not acting in a professional manner. The public expects and deserves better.
